Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

Because the fire was a common phenomenon around human beings and a necessary means for their life, from old times it has been a source of mythological imagination and an important theme of philosophical thinking.Ancient Greek philosopher, Heraklit's core thought is that "everything flows" (panta rhei) and "everything is one“ (hen panta einai). He formalized his core thought as the fire to follow logos. Hegel interpreted it as the fire to follow the dialectical logos, and found the becoming as the unification of being and nothingness in the fire. He thought that the fire was a soul and regarded the subject of the becoming process as the absolute spirit (Geit) and self. To compare with Hegel, Nagarjuna saw the fire in relation to the fuel. For Nagarjuna, the fire and the feul were the middle way things of non-identity and non-difference, which could not be understood by the svabhāba individuality and the svabhāba relationship. So he considered the middle way as the right way to understand the dharma as interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda). Hegel's fire to follow logos is the logic of unification and construction to intensify the spirit and the self and so go to the absolute self. But Nagarjuna's fire to follow dharma is the logic of deconstruction and emptiness to negate the self and the substance(svabhāva) and so lead to the non-self(anātman), the openness(śūnyatā), and the middle way. As the fire burns up dynamically, the fire in Hegel and Nagarjuna respects the various differences of viewpoint about fire. In the Heraklit's fire Hegel found the unity of being - nothingness and the spirit as the subject of the unification. On the other hand Nagarjuna sought the logic of the middle way style deconstruction in the fire with relation to the fuel.